“What do you think you are doing?”
“You’re not going without me.”
“Who was that?”
“Will you stay with me tonight?”
“I can’t let you do this alone.”
“Are you sure you don’t need me?”
“Please take me with you.”
“If anyone hurts you, they’re getting hurt worse.”
“I don’t need a bodyguard.”
“Who hurt you?”
“I need someone to watch my back.”
“You got this?”
“You are not okay.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“You have my full attention.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“I need you right now.”
“I can’t do this alone.”
“Come with me.”
“I can help you.”
“I got this.”
“I’m not taking no for an answer.”
“You’re not going with me.”
“What did you do?”
“If you need me, I’ll be here.”
“I don’t need your protection.”
“I didn’t ask you to do this.”
“You need me, even if you think you don’t.”
“I’m sorry. I need help.”

thesublemon:

Sincerity is uncomfortable because sincerity is vulnerability. In the context of art, sincerity is taking a stance–about the things you like, the beliefs you have, or the notes you’re going for. And if that note seems wrong or childish or too intense, then it is treated (or experienced) as embarrassing the way any sort of exposing failure is. Like asking someone out and having them turn you down. Sincerity, badly done, makes us want to avert our eyes. I’ve been thinking about the word “cheesy” lately, and why it’s almost always used in a pejorative sense. Art can be sincere without being cheesy, but nonetheless this embarrassment of vulnerability seems key to why people find cheese so aversive.

Sarah Perry talks about something similar in “Cringe and the Design of Sacred Experiences.” She describes “cringe” as the reaction to a failed attempt to induce the experience of sacredness. She also mentions Sontag’s “Notes on Camp,” where she says camp is defined as essentially “failed seriousness.” But Perry also suggests that sacredness and seriousness gain much of their power, when they have power, from the same vulnerability that causes cringe. To create an experience one first has to create, which inevitably leaves one open to failure.

So we could say that the deprecating use of ”cheesy” is deserved. We could say that, like with camp, people are correctly observing that an attempt at sincerity has failed. That if camp is failed seriousness, then “cheese” is something like failed emotionality. Perhaps failed bigness: a dramatic kiss, a climactic battle-cry or a well-timed explosion could all be cheesy in context.

But the difference between cheese and camp (and cringe) is that I don’t know that cheesy things are, in fact, failures. If you woo someone with a sonnet, that’s kind of cheesy, but the person who receives it will only be embarrassed on your behalf if the context is wrong. And even in that case it’s not the cheese, not the idea of writing a sonnet in general, that is the bad thing. Because even if the context were “correct” and the recipient was charmed, the sonnet would still be cheesy. It still wouldn’t be a dignified thing to do. It’s just that the indignity would be okay.

This is the essence of cheese, I think. Cheese isn’t just sincerity. Cheese is sincerity that opts out of dignity. That doesn’t treat dignity as a concern. Jack and Rose at the tip of the Titanic is cheesy because it runs the risk of looking silly in its quest to hit an exultantly romantic note. Every James Bond quip is cheesy, risking buffoonery as it does in its quest for a cavalier, larger-than-life cool. Titanic and James Bond are still ridiculous, but it’s that distance from realism that makes them fun, that gives you the big, movie-going joy. And in the case of the sonnet, it’s the inherent vulnerability of the sincerity (the very fact of indignity) that actually gives the act its greatest power to charm. I am willing to embarrass myself for you, is part of what a sonnet says.

Cheese isn’t the same as deliberate camp or winking meta-textuality, because those things are ironic. They don’t opt out of dignity; they opt out of trying. They might be trying at something, but not, the vast majority of the time, what they’re winking at. Cheese isn’t cheese unless it’s sincere.

Cheese is considered middlebrow because it’s obvious. It’s legible. It’s interested in having an effect, and so people that like being affected will flock to it. When it’s bad, cheese opts out of trying as much as anything else. Cheese is the safe choice when you’re afraid of seriousness, or forms of subtlety and weirdness that appeal more to the intellect than the animal.

The point is that it’s not cheese that’s bad. Neither is irony, New Sincerity, scatology or self-reflexivity. It’s the unwillingness to make unsafe choices. To quote “Cringe and the Design of Sacred Experiences”:

This is not to suggest that all failure to evoke sacred experience result in cringe. In fact, mere boredom may be a more common failure mode, and probably results in the absence of a brave (but failed) attempt to evoke sacred experience. A strong cringe reaction may be a good sign, compared to mere boredom: at least the attempt to evoke the sacred experience was recognizable in the case of cringe.

Cheese is artistically useful because big emotions, as we feel them, are basically as ridiculous as cheese feels. It’s not particularly dignified to be in love, or to be easily manipulated by a swell of music. But we still want to be in love, and we still enjoy the music. So how do you talk about love, or give people those musical experiences, unless you’re willing to be undignified yourself? How do give people experiences bigger than reality unless you’re willing to go big? How do you get your art to affect people, on the most basic, non-cheesy level unless you’re willing to get called “cheesy”?

In other words: cheese isn’t good or bad, but people and cultures that are afraid of cheese run the risk of being creatively crippled by it.

rj-anderson:

fictionadventurer:

We writers often categorize ourselves as “plotters” or “pantsers”, based on how much of our story we prefer to outline before we begin writing actual scenes. As I consider my writing process, I’m beginning to think this framework isn’t very useful for describing how I turn my ideas into a full-fledged story. But I think I’ve discovered a more useful way to frame this difference. Instead of “plotter vs. pantser”, consider: are you a deductive storyteller or an inductive storyteller?

Deductive reasoning starts with general premises and draws specific conclusions. In a similar way, deductive storytellers start with general concepts and work their way down to specific details.The Snowflake Method is the purest form of deductive storytelling–you start with the most basic overview, and at each level, you add more details and get more specific, until you wind up with a first draft.

To a deductive storyteller, the overarching framework is necessary in order to develop the small details. For example, if I were writing deductively, I’d decide that Suzie is a brave character, and then write scenes that show Suzie’s bravery. I’d also needs to figure out the steps of the plot before coming up with the details of any specific scene–I’d need to know that Suzie will argue with Dave so I can set up the tension that will lead to that scene. The big picture needs to come first, and any necessary details can be logically drawn from this framework.

In contrast, inductive reasoning starts with specific data and draws general conclusions. Therefore, inductive storytelling starts with specific details of a scene, and from that, draws general conclusions about the characters, plot, and setting. This type of writer aligns more closely with the “pantser” end of the spectrum, and is likely to get more ideas from writing scenes than from writing an outline.

An inductive storyteller needs to write out scenes, and use the small details in the prose to figure out broader facts about the plot, characters, and setting. For example, if I were writing inductively, I might write a scene in which Suzie was the only person in her party to enter a haunted house without hesitation. From this, I’d determine that Suzie was brave, and would use this insight to inform Suzie’s behavior in future scenes.  I’d also use the details of early scenes to figure out the next logical steps of my plot. For example, Suzie and Dave are having tense interactions across multiple scenes, so it’s logical that it will erupt into an argument in the next scene. The small details have to come first, so they can be combined logically to draw larger conclusions about the story.

This framework has given me insight into why I write the way I do. The “plotter vs. pantser” argument is generally framed as “do you get bored if you know the story beforehand”? But the difference goes much deeper than that–it ties into which method of story building feels more logical to you. I find that detailed outlines often destroy my stories. I might have a plot plan and character sheets that work extremely well in summary form, but I find I can’t use those big pictures to extrapolate the small details I need for a scene–the resulting story feels vague and artificial. It works much better if I write at least a few scenes first–see the characters interacting in their environment–and then dig deeper into what those details tell me about my characters, plot, and setting so I can further develop the story. Other people might find that they can’t come up with useful details unless they know the larger picture. Neither way is better–it just depends on your preferred storytelling strategy.

Obviously, writers will fall on a spectrum somewhere between these two extremes. But I feel that the “inductive vs. deductive” terminology is a more useful distinction than plain old “plotter vs. pantser”. The important thing isn’t whether you outline, but why an outline may or may not help you create the story you want to tell.

This is FABULOUS. I’ve never seen such a good description of my own (inductive) process before, and it actually helps to clarify some very important things for me about the project I’m currently working on — namely that I won’t find my way into the story by doing more research and taking more notes, I need to sit down and start writing scenes instead. (Which I really should know by now, because when has it worked for me any other way?)

What I really love about the deductive/inductive way of looking at writing is that it removes the value judgment implicit in the whole “pantser vs plotter” debate, where the very terms used invite a negative reaction from one group or the other (“You’re writing by the seat of your pants, how disorganized and lazy” or “You’re a plotter, clearly you’re approaching writing as a mechanical process and sucking all the life out of it”). With these terms it’s so much clearer that they are both viable, logical processes, and one is not superior to the other — they’re just different methods of telling a good story.

Thank you, @fictionadventurer! I’m going to use these terms when I talk about writing methods from now on.

anexperimentallife:

bookcharactersthough:

danielle-writes:

Some advice for when you’re writing and find yourself stuck in the middle of a scene:

• kill someone
• ask this question: “What could go wrong?” and write exactly how it goes wrong
• switch the POV from your current character to another – a minor character, the antagonist, anyone
• stop writing whatever scene you’re struggling with and skip to the next one you want to write
• write the ending
• write a sex scene
• use a scene prompt
• use sentence starters
• read someone else’s writing

Never delete. Never read what you’ve already written. Pass Go, collect your $200, and keep going.

This is the literal best writing advice I have ever read. Period.

Special note: “Kill someone” means kill someone in the story. Please do not kill random real life passers by every time you hit a block. My lawyer says misunderstanding writing advice is not an acceptable defense. See you all in 25 to 50 years.

jxsminewrites:

• your writing is a skill, not an inborn talent (unless, yeah, maybe it is). not everyone can do what you do and love
• everyone says they want to write a book. everyone has what it takes to write a book. not everyone does it anyway. you be the small percentage of success you read about
• your writing will always seem brickshit horrible because you wrote and read it a million times
• you love this writing thingy. quitting it will be like cutting off your fingers one by one.
• someone out there will want to read what you wrote.
• someone out there wants to know what is on your mind. 
• someone out there appreciates your art. they will share it with their friends. they will share it with their loved ones. they will share it with their future self because maybe what you wrote saved them.
• if you give up now, you know you will just come back to it again, whether it’s years from now, months, or next week. you love writing, that’s why you planted the seed of thought that you are going to write this book, and whether you come back to it or not, your unwritten stories will come back to you.